Category Archives: ponderings

Anger & An Update

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Is there a difference between experiencing anger and being an angry person? In my opinion there is. And I think Jesus showed us there was and granted His responses were perfect. He experienced and responded to the anger He felt when the people made His Father’s house a den of thieves instead of a house of prayer. But when falsely accused at His trial He did not respond in anger. He was not an angry person; He knew Who He was and Whose He was. He knew where He came from and where He was going to. He had a vital connection to His Father, a connection we need as well and should strive for.

I believe too often we become angry people because we do not allow ourselves to feel, to experience and process our emotions or when we stuff our feelings. A person who is easily offended is an angry person. I believe if my first response to things done against me is anger, especially minor things, like a driver cutting me off or my child spilling a glass of water; I’m an angry person and I need to look deeper into my heart. What other deeper pain have I not admitted and processed? What other emotions am I not allowing myself to feel? Anger is often a secondary emotion; there is something under that emotion.  I’ve been there- I’ve been an angry person and when I looked below all that anger there was a deeply hurting heart. A heart that was stuffing and denying a lot of emotions. A heart that was dying piece by broken piece. I realized my heart felt insecure and afraid. I had been violated, taken advantage of and my world was not a safe place. I became an angry person to hide my hurting heart. Responding in anger felt safer, I felt stronger. Anger would keep people away. Who wants to be close to a prickly person? Yes, it’s in relationships we experience our deepest hurts but it’s also in relationships where we experience the greatest healing. And the most important relationship we can have is with Jesus. I very clearly remember the night I poured out my intense anger at God. I actually shook my fist in His face and told Him I think He’s being very unfair. He has no idea how painful my life has been and to lose a child to death was just the most awful excruciatingly painful thing He could have done to me. The words and anger just rolled and boiled out of my heart that night. And when I was spent, my heart emptier than it had been in a very long time; and yet through the anger, I felt in a very real sense the loving arms of God holding me and gently whispering to me, ‘Oh yes, I know the pain of your child dying. And all that other stuff I never wanted to happen; it was a result of the sin cursed, broken earth you live in right now.” And I never felt so loved and cared for as I did in that moment. I experienced Isaiah 42:3 “He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle.”  I never felt as loved as I did that dark night. I realized God is more concerned about me being honest and real with Him than He is about me doing everything right so I can make my way to heaven.

I don’t believe God wants us to be angry people but I do believe He wants us to get angry at sin yet choose to respond in a healthy good way. I believe He wants us to care for our hearts so they can be healthy. A healthy heart experiences and expresses a multitude of emotions and a redeemed healthy heart’s desire will be that its responses honor God. If I am godly- I will be like God- Love what He loves, hate what He hates, and get angry at what makes Him angry. Granted He will do it perfect and I will not but God knows my heart and the motives of it and His grace and mercy extends to my faltering efforts.

Update/Prayer Request: Joe and JoAnn were both back to Hershey for checkups. Joe is good for another year. But the tumor/cyst on JoAnn’s brain is enlarging/growing again. The doctor feels something should be done. But is it surgery, radiation or something else? Should it be done now or wait til she has more symptoms? The team of doctors was going to discuss her case this week sometime and hopefully come up with possible options. So it looks like we have some decisions to make. I’ve been feeling a bit fragile as I think of the possibility of brain surgery or whatever is decided. I know a whole lot more about how our brains work than I did 3 years ago when JoAnn had surgery done. I have more knowledge as to the possibilities of what could go wrong and the effects of that and part of me wishes I’d be a little more innocent of how much our life is impacted by how healthy and how well our brains work. Brain injury, whether traumatic or acquired, is a life changing, ongoing event. Also Jana has been back doing physical therapy again and her therapists have decided to try a brace for her left foot, as it was over compensating for her right foot, which would cause her to lose her balance and at times fall. Than you for your prayers.

Seeing Myself

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I wonder if how I see God hinges a lot on how I believe God sees me, or maybe how I see myself. What does God think of me? What do I think of myself? If I don’t see myself as having any value, why would I believe Jesus died for me? We have value to Jesus even as sinners. I believe He sees what we could be – what we were meant to be – living in Eden… a beautiful, perfect life. But we aren’t in Eden anymore, we are living in a broken world where Satan has taken everything God has made good and beautiful and twisted it and came up with a counterfeit for it. And we try our very best to either kill our longings or to control them or Christianize them but never look too deeply at what our hearts are truly longing for because we fear we can’t have what we want.

For a long time I questioned, why am I here? Am I loved, wanted? I didn’t believe I had any worth. I wasn’t much more than trash. I was ashamed and filled with shame because of what had happened to me. I was sure if I could have somehow been “good enough” I wouldn’t have been abused. I could have somehow prevented bad stuff from happening to me. After all “God is great and God is good” and good stuff happens to good people, bad stuff happens to bad people. And then in church we’d sing that song, something about Jesus dying for such a worm as I. And I thought “yeah right, who dies for worms?” I sure wouldn’t. But I don’t feel much different than a worm looks. Slimy and gross, crawling around in the mud and muck, feeling dirty, ugly and used; so why would Jesus die for me? I’m crying now as I remember those feelings of worthlessness, ugliness, and my empty hurting heart. I’m crying for that lonely sad girl wishing she could have known how much she was loved and cared for by Jesus. I wish I would have known the Jesus I know now, but I also realize my heart had its own journey of healing to take and healing can take a long long time.

But what if I saw myself as God sees me? What if my heart was and is beautiful? What if God saw me as a special unique child of His? So I starting looking for answers to those questions and many more and the more answers I found, the more questions I had. And the deeper I went the more I became aware of this mystery about God and who He is. The more I learned, the more there is to learn and some questions won’t have answers till we meet Him face to face. I realized too for my heart to be able to really “get it” I’d have to be vulnerable and trust God and have faith in His promises but trusting is not a safe thing to do. Trusting means people take advantage of you, they hurt you. But trusting God is vastly different than trusting people. Yet I think we learn to trust God by first experiencing trust in people which is why it’s so important for us as Christians to look in our hearts and allow God to heal the broken places so we can be very intentional about showing Christ as accurately as we can to the people in our world.

Trust is the opposite of fear. But I will only trust to the same level that I allow myself to experience God’s love. How do I allow my heart to open and experience God’s love? By embracing and being honest with what I’m experiencing in my heart. I have asked God to come and live in my heart and so to know God better, more deeply I need to go where He is and that is looking into my heart and what’s in there. I’m not sure how or why it works but it seems the more honest and open I am with myself and talk to God about what I’m feeling, the more I experience God and His love. Maybe the emptier my heart is of fear, distrust, anxiety and anger there’s more room for God and His love.

Seeing God

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“There’s a place where fear has to meet the God you know.”

What kind of God do I know? How do I know God?  How have I experienced God? And does it really matter or make a difference? I strongly believe it does. A. W. Tozer says, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” And that for me was another important piece in learning how to dance in my storm.  What did I think about God? And what do I now think about God? Grieving and facing my fears really has helped me “see” God in a whole different new light. It has become a passion, maybe a burden too, I want everyone to know God, to experience Him as I have come to know and experience Him. Yes, I realize God meets each one of us in a unique and personal way and that you can’t really experience God as I have because your story is different from mine.  But if in telling my story helps someone to see, to understand God more clearly, then I want to be willing to risk being vulnerable, open, honest and real.

For most of my life I saw God as this distant, un-involved, even maybe angry being. I needed to be sure I did everything right and followed all the rules and don’t ask questions. There was a lot of anger, distrust and fear in my heart. I also had a big misunderstanding about how God felt about me and His plans and desires for me, for my life. As a young teen I was told “It was God’s will that your mother died.” And I thought “I’m not so sure I like a god who plans my mother’s death. If he planned that, did He plan the abuse that happened, too?” And the fear and distrust of God in my heart just went deeper and I decided since there are only two options: heaven or hell, I’ll hopefully do just enough good to keep out of hell. Because hell did sound a lot worse than heaven, yet did I really want to spend forever with a God who planned awful stuff to happen to me? Such confusing thoughts, better not think too deeply about such things. Maybe the best thing would be to not think at all, to just do, obey all the rules, make sure I look like a good Christian, like I have it together and go from one good party to the next. I certainly didn’t think I really wanted to learn to know too deeply the God I thought He was or heard He was.But what if I was wrong? What if God wasn’t and isn’t like that at all? What if I hadn’t been given accurate statements about God? What if the God I knew didn’t exist? Through quite a long journey, of many years, tears and questions, I started to realize that some of the messages my heart heard about God where not accurate. God DID NOT plan all the bad things that happened. God NEVER even wanted bad stuff to happen to His people. It all started when that snake tempted Eve and she chose the tree of knowledge instead of the tree of life and the consequences of that choice. And the more I learned about God, the more I longed to know Him, to experience Him. It was in November 2013 that I had my first head-on collision with God and I’ve never been the same since. A lot of healing happened in my heart in that moment and I felt a freedom I never knew was possible. Then in March 2014 I had another collision with God, literally and figuratively, that collision also changed me forever. It put to test all the ideas and beliefs I had about God and the way I saw Him. A lot of them failed but I was learning to know a God I hadn’t realized existed. I was experiencing a different kind of God than I thought He was. And I fell deeply in love with the God I was experiencing. No, I never saw God but I’ve felt His arms and they are so strong, gentle and comforting. So loving and kind. So safe. So real and alive. It’s the only clear “memory” I have in the week after our accident and there are really no words to describe what it’s like, being held in God’s arms. It’s the most awesome thing that has ever happened to me. On really hard days I go back to that place and let my heart soak in the love, strength, courage and grace that comes from just being held.

I’ve been listening to this song “More than you think I am” by Danny Gokey a lot and I wonder, who do I think I am to be able to tell anyone who God is or how I have experienced Him? There are no words, no thing that can really portray the awesomeness, the beauty of God; God is way more than we think He is. Our hearts have to be willing to be vulnerable and open to experience God.  I’m almost tempted not even to post my ramblings but I sense, I know that God is okay with my bumbling efforts; He will bring clarity and understanding to a heart that is seeking Him.

Fear

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As I’ve been mourning and allowing my heart to be aware of my loss, grief and pain, it also brings another part of my heart to life- – FEAR, mind-numbing, breath-taking fear. Yes, some is legit and understandable but a lot of it is not; it’s purely irrational. I think it’s another one of Satan’s tactics, if he can’t get me to ignore or deny my losses. He’ll get me to be afraid, afraid that something bad is going to happen again, maybe even worse than before. And then I question God, Are You a good Father? Will you take care of me or do I need to look out for myself? And wonder how and if I can survive another loss, more pain? I wonder how many of us live our lives out of fear without even knowing it. There are many masks I can wear so I don’t have to look fear in the face. Sometimes I hide behind the mask of being a good mother when in reality I’m scared. I tell myself a good mother protects her children and tries to keep them safe and yes, she does but she doesn’t stifle them or hold them back. A good mother allows her children to try and struggle and sometimes even fail; but she is beside them encouraging them, believing in them. Too often I want to be strong for my children and don’t allow God to show Himself strong to them, to me. Fear is paralyzing, it keeps me from moving forward. It keeps me from dancing in the storm. Fear is also numbing it keeps me from feeling the real, the raw emotions whether it’s pain and anger or peace and joy. It keeps me from being fully alive, experiencing life. Living in fear is very exhausting, mostly because I’m trying to control life; to make life work the way I think it should.

But why?? What am I afraid of, what is under all that fear? I’m thinking it might be that I don’t really, honestly, truly trust God. He has allowed some huge losses in my life- – What if He allows another one, more?? What if?? And a million questions/thoughts can go through your mind. Can I trust God?? Is He a safe God? Yes, No, maybe but He is a good good Father. Yes, He is a trustworthy God, He is faithful. I just need to page back through my journals and see all the many times He was there in the pain and loss. He still is here with me in my pain, loss and fear. But I believe I will only trust God to the depth I experience His love. But living in fear keeps my from experiencing His love; I need to face my fears and as hard as it sounds- I need to embrace that fear. Acknowledging, looking fear full in the face causes it to lose its power then I can release it, give it to Jesus. “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid…this shows we have not fully experienced His love.” 1John 4:18 As Casting Crowns one song says, “There’s a place where fear has to face the God you know.” Facing my fear has allowed me to let my TBI define me; it has allowed me to accept how my TBI changed the way I live. No, it hasn’t defined who I am (I am still a beautiful daughter of my Good Good Father) but what I can do. There is so much freedom and peace in accepting myself and my limitations and acceptance takes away a lot of stress and pressure. Facing my fears has allowed me to dance in the storm and it has also changed my view of God.

A prayer request and I’m not sure who needs the prayers the most….Justin or us. He has committed to a year of service in Iraq. Talk about fear… well that brings it real close home.

Grieving helps me Dance

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All of us suffer loss in different ways and degrees. And each loss has its own unique pain and grief which becomes part of our story. Loss brings a sudden stop to the life we knew. It freezes life into a snapshot; (we only have pictures and memories of Jennie now, we no longer have her with us). Loss brings a disruption to our plan. It forever changes life as we knew it. It makes us ask the deeper questions – – Who am I really? What do I believe about God, about me, about life? Loss messes with our identity; it changes us and at times, I’m not sure who I am or who I’m becoming. Loss can also happen as a result of wrong doing against us and can cause us to want justice, revenge for the one who wronged us to make up or pay for the loss they caused. Sometimes loss can’t be seen with our eyes or touched with our hands; sometimes they are only be felt by the heart.

Whether it’s the death of someone we love, the death of a dream, the loss of a job or a house or the innocence of our childhood. Loss never leaves us the same- it will either transform us or destroy us. I would rather be transformed than destroyed but that means I have to face each loss head on. I need to identify want I lost, put words to what was taken away, which makes those heart losses, I have found, seem to be the hardest to process, to work through because sometimes the heart has no words for what it experiences.
Facing my losses requires me to take an inventory of my life: What is my number one priority? What is most important? Where is my main focus? In his book, The Journey of Desire John Eldridge writes there are two spiritual disciplines we as Christians should practice daily: worship- adoring God deliberately, regularly and grieving- allowing sorrow to do its work in our hearts. Which is similar to what a friend had told me; there are two altars in which to worship God: the altar of praise or the altar of lament. And I’m beginning to realize the more I’m at the altar of lament, allowing sorrow to do its work, the deeper the adoration I feel for God at the altar of praise.

I need to grieve each and every loss I experience if I want to be transformed rather than destroyed. God values authenticity, wanting us to be real, to be honest with ourselves, our hearts. Grieving is entering into and embracing the darkness that comes with each loss, and the bigger the loss or maybe the more aware I am of what I’ve lost, the deeper the darkness. I need to allow my heart to feel the pain of each loss, even though it hurts and sometimes the pain is excruciating. Grieving is good for us, it is cleansing. Mourning is the only way my heart can remain alive and free in this world of loss. Sorrowing is what allows our hearts to forgive the one who has sinned against us, allowing God to take care of the revenging. Lamenting is hanging on to God when your world is in total chaos but sometimes it’s allowing God to hold you when you have no strength to hold on to Him. Grieving also helps us understand, to realize that the life we had, is gone forever; and no matter how much or how well we grieve, it will not bring life, the way it was, back to us. It releases the life we had and opens our hearts to the good that is still in our present life. To accept the life I now have I must grieve the life I lost. It seems like such a paradox: loss, pain, grief, sorrow, lament, seemingly negative words; giving birth to worship, praise, adoration, alive, free, positive words. So as I face each loss and grieve it well, I am better able to love, to dance freely, openly with God my Papa.

And in other news, we are now the owners of a city house. We actually had settlement. I admit I was a bit fearful, even till the morning of our appointment, what if we get there and they back out…but they didn’t and we signed all the many papers and it became ours. Thank you for your prayers.

A Bend in the Road

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In my last post, I had written we are planning to buy a house and had a settlement date; well, we didn’t have settlement- -four days before the settlement date the bank called and said, “We won’t approve the loan”!?! My head heard their reason, their explanation but my heart did not – still does not understand. We knew that our bankruptcy and foreclosure were going to be hard on our credit rating and also that banks don’t look too kindly on you for several years. And we told the loan officer all of that, we hid nothing. So how did she get a pre-approval for a mortgage to go through? We have no idea but she did. And Joe and I had agreed we won’t seriously look for a house till we know from the bank for sure that we can buy. So after we had our pre-approval letter, we contacted our realtor and he sent us a list of houses. We checked them out and made calls about some of them, went and saw a couple as well but nothing seemed right. Then we found this one and it had everything on our ‘need’ list and all but one thing on our ‘want’ list. It felt like a perfect fit for our needs. So we moved ahead with all the paperwork and now there’s a bend in the road. We’re not sure how the financing will come together but we still feel very strongly God wants us to buy this house that God is asking us to open our hearts and be willing to take the next steps in faith, to be willing to risk. Thankfully the seller is willing to work with us and at this point we are renting the house from her. We are still planning to buy it; we are looking into what options we have. We have done some painting and cleaning and are slowly moving some things in. And the more I go to the house, the more I like it and the more it feels like home.

I wonder, What is God teaching me, our family in this journey? What does God want me to learn about Him through this? What is my view of God in this piece of my story? There are parts of my heart being prodded and poked as this situation unfolds and I am aware of some unsettled feelings and emotions in my heart in connection with our bankruptcy and foreclosure.  I wonder, Is there something more God wants me to process and heal from that I didn’t know about before or maybe even ignored or pushed away? My hope and prayer is that my heart is open, sensitive and quiet enough to hear God’s still small voice; for it’s in the quietness God speaks and too often I am not quiet. I’m so busy trying to manage, to control, and to make life work that I miss the open doors, the opportunities to rest, to trust Him.

And the other bend in the road is the new diagnosis JoAnn got from the specialist Joe took her to this week in Hershey. They diagnosed her as having Neurofibromatosis (NF) which is an inherited disorder in which nerve tissue tumors form in the bottom layer of skin or in the nerves from the brain and spinal cord. NF causes tissue along nerves to grow uncontrollably and can put pressure on the nerves causing pain, seizures, even blindness depending where the tumors grow. There is no known cure for this disease, just options to control symptoms she may have. And the tumor in her brain is again slowly filling with fluid. She has another appointment after she comes home from Bible School, for follow-up care and to give us time to process and think through our options for a care plan. Could you pray that we would be able to think clearly as we search the options given us? That we would be honest with our hearts and process and work through the feelings and emotions we experience as we walk this journey especially JoAnn. She will need to control the symptoms and deal with possible complications the rest of her life.

I don’t know what’s around these bends in our road but I do know God my Father is with me and I will be okay, if I allow myself to be still and allow myself to be held.

Merry Christmas, Jennie

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It’s your 3rd Christmas in heaven. And as Mark Schultz sings, “It’s a different kind of Christmas this year.” I think every Christmas will be different from now on. There will always be the questions, the wanderings, in our hearts even if we don’t say them. I struggle to put words to all that’s swirling in my heart. But I want to do as Toby Mac sings, “Let’s open up our hearts to embrace this moment, for Christmas this year.” An open heart will allow me to experience, not only the joy, peace and excitement of the season, but also the pain and sadness of missing your smiling face and life as it used to be.

We’ve done most of our normal Christmas traditions. True some were seriously modified, like we only baked two kinds of cookies instead of the usual eight to ten we used to do. And one of our new traditions the past three years was to wrap 24 Christmas story books and starting December 1 we unwrap one book each day and read the story. The story the other day really touched my heart and I cried as I read the story. It was titled Josie’s Gift by Kathleen Long Bostrom. It was the story of a young girl’s first Christmas after the death of her father. She was remembering the different things her father said and did. One of his saying over Christmas was, “Christmas is not about what we want; it’s about what we have.” But she was wanting more than she had; she wanted her father to be back, for life to be like it used to be. Christmas wasn’t about what she had; it was all about what was missing this year. And I can so well identify with her feelings.

 But I’ve been really pondering her dad’s saying: Christmas is not about what we want but about what we have. What do I have this Christmas?

~ Pain and tiredness true but then we enjoyed baking those cookies together;

We stayed home and painted pictures,

Made a gingerbread nativity.

~ We miss Jennie but we talked about her and Christmas in heaven and “Does it snow in heaven?” and many other questions about heaven. There was laughter and tears.

~ Peace – a deep down in my heart peace that I will be okay in this storm because my Father loves me passionately and is for me not against me and I can trust Him.

~ Hope – My Father has promised me heaven and I think since there’s a piece of me in heaven that’s what makes me long for heaven so badly some days. I never realized you could miss something you never had but I do.

And yet the more I ponder that saying; I think it’s actually wrong. Christmas is all about what we want, although not in the childish way her dad was thinking. But most of us are still very child-like in thinking if only I can get what I want: that money raise, that new car, a bigger house or well you fill in the blank, and then I can make life work, then life will be better. Most of don’t want to open our hearts and look deeply enough into them to really understand what it is we really want. The truth is I do want more than I have this Christmas. I want heaven. We all do. And what we all want is only possible because of Christmas. Because that is when God became one of us to make it possible for us to live with Him in a perfect world, forever. The following song is one of my favorites this Christmas season sung by Stars Go Dim. The phrase “Our God knows our deepest need, And comes to bring us back to him” speaks to me of how deeply and passionately God loves me and Christmas shows far He was willing to go to bring me back to Him.

Suffering

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I know I wrote how God is enough here but sometimes it almost seems that well maybe He isn’t. The past weeks I’ve been going through the posts and updates that were put on Caring Bridge in the days following our accident. I had never read through them before. I’m still not done going through them. It’s hard and rather difficult. It brings back some very painful moments and memories. I’m not sure how we survived. God was very much carrying us. I remember thinking back then, “I can’t wait till this pain is gone, till I’m back to my normal self”. But guess what- I’m still living with pain and I’ve totally lost “my normal self”. True the intensity of the physical pain is nowhere near what it had been. Yet the emotional/mental pain seems to be just as bad as it was and since I no longer have the physical pain to distract me; it makes some days difficult. It’s that ongoing, nagging, irritating physical pain along with the emotional pain- -make some of my days rather pain filled which almost drive me crazy. Will it never end? Suffering and pain, especially long-term, drive us to desperation. In my pain, I become desperate, wanting something, anything to ease the pain, to stop or take away the pain. In my desperation, where do I go? Do I turn to my Father or do I allow bitterness to grow? Do I allow myself to struggle with God allowing pain and suffering? Or do I try to Christianize it? Do I just want to get out of my suffering or do I try to see Jesus through, even in my suffering? We may never understand the reason we suffer, the reason we go through some of this pain.  But could it be one way God is pursuing us? True it seems like God’s got it all wrong; how can suffering and pain draw us to Him? But remember how desperate we become in pain and we need to remember God is in the pain with us. Yes, suffering and pain at times blocks our ability to see God but that doesn’t mean He isn’t there. And it seems that an all-powerful God wouldn’t allow such horrible stuff to happen to us, especially those who are doing their best to live for Him. But there is more to my suffering, than just the story of my suffering; it is part of God’s larger story. In our suffering and pain it is so easy to become so focused on me and my story and forget we aren’t the center piece. God is. Even though He is the Author of the story, He is also the Hero in the story. God the Father planned a way to restore us to Himself, for us to have an intimate relationship with Him through having His Son come to this earth. And why did Jesus come to this earth? To show us how to love and to suffer. Jesus, because of His passionate love for us, suffered the ultimate suffering and it wasn’t even for His benefit. He suffered for me- to bridge that chasm between God and me. Larry Crabb says in one of the Grief Share videos, “You can always trust the Man who died for you.” And that just gripped my heart deeply. Even though I do not begin to understand why God allowed painful things to happen to me, I also realize those things were never His desire, His dream for me. But can I trust Him to make beauty out of it? Can I allow myself to rest in the fact that someday He will make all things new? Can I be okay with the never-ending longing for something more and realize that I’m longing for heaven? And not try to make heaven here, but to be willing to keep an open heart and hand as I journey through this life. And to realize, I was made for a totally different world that the one I am currently living in. As Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.” And even though I have lots of questions and I don’t understand what God is doing; yes I still believe God IS enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l3CEMWCxSk

 

Out of the Mouth of Babes

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Several weeks ago one Sunday morning, Janessa was looking at a family picture I have in our room taken when she was about six months old taken at her baby dedication. She said, “I wish we could fast-forward- -NO! I mean fast backward to that time. And then you wouldn’t go away in the night and have an accident. Then Jennie wouldn’t have died and Jana wouldn’t be broken and all our dreams wouldn’t have broken either.” I was almost speechless. I managed to say, “I know dear, it would be nice to be able to redo it but this is where we are. We’ll have to dream new dreams.” But as young as she is, she sounded so like an old tired little lady, sighing deeply she said, “But it’s so hard to dream new dreams.”

I hear you little girl; dreaming new dreams is very hard when your dreams have been broken, shattered. And how do you even begin to dream again when all that you knew, your world has been shattered? When the life you had, is nothing like the life you are now living?

img_7840While I still have more questions than answers and I’m not too sure that I’ve begun to dream well again-yet. I think I’m starting to dream again. I get glimpses of the flicker, the longing, the wanting to dream again. Yet there are the questions… Is it safe to dream again? What if my dreams get broken again? Can I even dream again? – Life is so hard and I’m so tired. – Is it even worth trying to dream again? And if I don’t dream again my dreams can’t be shattered, I won’t have any to shatter.

shattered-dreamsSo why dream new dreams? Dreaming again shows healing, speaks of life. One thing that I am coming to a deeper understanding of is – acceptance is a huge part in being able to dream again. I need to accept where I am, to be okay with the fact I can’t do as much as I used to do or even do as much as I would like to do. But acceptance seems to be an elusive thing- – some days I feel I have accepted how my life has changed and I am bold and ask for help or I let people know how they can help us. And then there are days when I am resistant to the changes, to the pain. I wish things were different. I’m a grouch because the house is dirty and the flowerbeds are not flowering; they are full of weeds. And I desperately miss Jennie’s smiling face, her cheery voice and helping hands. And I wish we go back to the life we used to know.

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What does acceptance look like? And how do I accept my new life? Acceptance is not a passive thing, where I just say, “Okay, whatever, it will be fine. God is in control.” Acceptance does not mean my heart is disengaged or silenced. Acceptance means my heart is alert and very aware of the journey I am on. It also includes that I am very aware of and know what my losses are and have grieved well those losses. I have to grieve the life I had to be able to accept the life I now have. And to grieve well I need to be aware of what I lost. It sometimes feels like an ever maddening circle, and I’m only getting dizzy and barely surviving instead of accepting my new life and thriving. I also wonder if acceptance might also includes knowing Who my Father is and what His heart is towards me; being willing to grapple with my questions about life and even God, yet not demanding an answer or not trusting God’s sovereignty; being willing to keep an open tender heart even though it feels most dangerous and unsafe to do. Maybe acceptance looks more like a fierce fight or struggle than a quiet “I’ll just give up and hope it all turns out okay” attitude. Maybe it’s also being okay with mystery; the mystery of how God can use this brokenness and pain, an ugly mess and make something of beauty from it. Thank you Father for being a Redeemer.

Following God into a Storm??

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Did you know being obedient to God’s leading can take you right into a battle, right into a storm? Here are a few more of my thoughts (hopefully they have not scattered too badly) from the Pursuit of the Promised Land Bible Study by Marie Monville.

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For the Israelites to get into their promised land they needed to fight some battles, they had work to do, lots of hard work. They were following God’s command to Joshua to conquer and live in the land God had promised to Abraham. And also the disciples were told by Jesus to get into their boat and cross to the other side of the lake. And while they were still “far from land, a strong wind had risen and they were fighting heavy waves” Luke 14:22. Jesus knew that storm was going to come but yet He still told them to go to the other side of the lake. And the disciples obediently did as Jesus told them. I wonder what the disciples were thinking when they were in that storm. “Jesus told us to do this and now here we are in the middle of a storm, maybe we’ll drown! Why did Jesus tell us to go with the storm coming? Surely He knew what was coming. What was He thinking?”
The Israelites, like the disciples, were doing what Jesus told them to and what did they encounter? Battles, storms, and hard stuff.  What am I to do with that? I follow God and end up in a storm? a battle? One thing I think God wants us to realize is that difficult circumstances do not mean that He is punishing us. Maybe like the Israelites needing to walk quietly around Jericho; God wants me to walk quietly with Him, to allow Him to fight the battle? Maybe He needs my quietness so He can speak into someone’s heart? Like maybe my very own heart? Maybe like the disciples, after trying their best to get to the other side of the lake and then being scared out of their wits by Jesus, they were ready to accept Jesus’ help; God is wanting me to give it my best and be willing to accept help.
Another thing I think God wants us to realize is that He often uses the “least likely” like Rahab, she was a prostitute but she hid Joshua’s spies and as long as she put the red cord in her window and stayed in her house she would be safe when they conquered Jericho. And Rahab also looked out for her family even though they may have looked down on her, held her life style against her. Rahab was a prostitute but God used her right where she was, living in sin. Even in our sin God is merciful with us. There were times as the Israelites were going into battle Joshua didn’t seek God’s leading, he went ahead and did it his way. And they ended up at places they never would have if they had only asked God first. But God came through and fought for them even though they were in a place they shouldn’t have been. They were in a wrong place because of the wrong choices they made but still God held the sun and moon in place till the battle was won. And I believe God wants to do the same for me- fight my battles but too often I’m afraid He’ll take me out instead of my enemy. Why is it so hard for me to believe that God is for me and not against me? Why is it so hard to trust that God is looking out for me? Maybe I need to learn to know who God really is, how God truly feels about me.
And I have a hard time believing Rahab continued her life as a prostitute after her encounter with God. When we have an encounter with God it very often changes us and maybe that is another reason God allows the storms, the battles- so our eyes, our hearts will open towards Him. So we can really know who we are and who God really is- – a good, good Father who loves and cares for us passionately and is longing to have a close, living relationship with us. For us to know He’s there dancing in the storm with us.

DSCN2170The fairy garden I made today in the workshop I attended at Ken’s Gardens.